After seeing what seemed to be quite a few fresh mugs around lately...I started wondering...

See, I'm one of those goofballs that likes numbers. And, I must say, the numbers look pretty good for Sailnet membership of late. "Trending nicely" is the term I think.

Here's what I found...

For 2009:
New members from 01/01 to 06/01: 4923 (Not bad - but down from '08)
Members with at least 1 post from 01/01 to 06/01: 1550 +/-
31% participation (up significantly from '08 - that's cool)

New members from 06/01 to Present: 3029!! (Sweet! Not even 3 months!)
Members with at least 1 post from 06/01 to Present: 980 +/-
32% participation (definitely sweet! more loudmouth sailors!)

Compared to 2008:
New members from 01/01 to 06/01: 5229
Members with at least 1 post from 01/01 to 06/01: 1220 +/-
23% participation

New members from 06/01 to 09/01: 2741
Members with at least 1 post from 06/01 to Present: 920 +/-
33% participation

++++++++++++

Not a bad trend in the last few months, eh? Starting to get back toward the numbers of 2006/7 with far better participation! Of course, I'm not going to dig any further than that. I'm too damn lazy. But...

Seriously, I'm surprised at the number of new members since June. Where are they all? It saddens me a little when I see enthusiastic posts from newbs and see how excited they are to be getting into sailing, only to see them fall off the grid, never to be heard from again. I just hope some of them are out there getting some BFSailing done so they can come back here and share the fun.

The part that disturbs me most is that most of the time there are between 75 and 120 people viewing the threads in the main forums, but the posts stay on the first page for days. (Sometimes with only a couple of replies) Do most of these lurkers know everything about sailing? or are they afraid they will sound stupid if they ask a question?

Dave, my personal opinion is the latter. I can float plenty of past threads that have given newbs that impression.

Hopefully that will change.

I'd love to hear from any long-time lurkers as to what they'd recommend for making it more inviting to join up and join in.

I mean this IS the coolest damn forum on the planet. In my opinion, it's got the edginess/freedom that CF doesn't, but isn't a complete whackfest like SA. It's the perfect middle ground. No reason it shouldn't grow.

I can only speak for myself. I got real serious about purchasing a sailboat a couple of months ago. I found a lot of great information from this site. Two weeks ago I put a down payment on a Catalina 25 on Lake Erie (2+ hours from home). Tomorrow we meet to do all the title work, etc.

Being a newbie to sailing, I am trying to soak up all the "theory" I can. These include books, forums, articles, etc. I am not going to have many weekends free this fall to sail, so I could not justify the slip rental for a weekend or two of learning. Thus I am waiting until the Spring. This gives me time to attend a Power Squadron course and more "sponge" work.

-- JodyS/V "To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts." - 1983, Barberis Show 38! or To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

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